July 3, 2025 • 55 mins
A solid understanding of firearms and their function and purpose is essential to being a successful investigator. Failure to understand the things encountered in the street... there is no telling what kind of interpretation one will wind up making . Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack look at the weapons used in the murders of Lincoln, JFK, and Oswald and Joe explains why It is important to be "studied up" when working in the field.
Transcript Highlights
00:00.07 Introduction
02:33.91 Brief History of firearms
06:08.03 $12 mail order gun supposedly killed JFK -- how do you figure it out
09:04.62 The Rifleman
15:48.72 The weapon used to kill Lincoln
20:12.47 Baseball bat favored by Dave
25:20.33 Never say gunshot wound on report in the field
30:25.58 JFK neck wound used for creating airway
35:14.95 The "Magic Bullet"
40:12.97 Oswald shooting injury
45:05.23 Projectile would have defect
49:28.41 Round traveling out of weapon
55:46.90 Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quality diners with Joseph Scott More. There are certain individuals
throughout history who, for whatever reason, have been linked to
specific historic events. One such person is a gentleman that
(00:21):
I have mentioned previously on body Backs who was the
chief medical examiner for Dallas. His name was doctor Earl Rose,
and for his time, he was highly educated, highly trained,
(00:46):
and was one of the leading experts in the country
on death investigation. It just so happens that his life
intersected with three of the principal people involved in the
JFK assassination, actually four, and three of the four had
(01:15):
something in common. They all died as a result of gunshot.
Ones today on body Bags, in a continuing effort to
offer our friends out there a bit of forensic education,
if you will, we're going to be talking about gunfire
(01:36):
and gunfire related deaths because let's face that, it's part
of the fabric of who we are in America. It
happens every single day. There are many cases out there
that are quite high profile, but there are others that
go without a whisper. But the one thing they have
in common is the trauma they are subjected to at
(02:02):
the hands of someone that has fired a weapon into
their body. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body backs.
It's really hard to know, looking back through time, who
the first victim of a gunshot wound was. And I'm
(02:27):
not even talking about lethal. We know that the Chinese
invented gunpowder, and we know that as early as the
twelve hundreds they had a firearm. This is something that
(02:47):
they would load. It's essentially a tube packed with gunpowder.
They would spark this thing off and they just put
all manner of trapnel down the barrel, which he turns
this into a gigantic shotgun, if you will, not very aerodynamic,
but for its time, I'm sure that it was quite
(03:08):
frightful for those that were on the business end of
the weapon. If you will, to have these items flying
through the air at you and slamming into your body.
Things that in the past maybe you wore armor for,
like to defeat a sword or a spear blow, were
(03:29):
insufficient to the task. And suddenly a whole new world
opened up in warfare and then eventually trickles down to
the civilian world. But we do know that there was
one gentleman that is the first recorded assassination victim by
(03:52):
someone that had fired a weapon. And this gent's name
and he's rather fashma. I'm looking at the image of
him right now. Was a guy named James Stewart, first
Earl of Moray, and back in I don't know, about
fifteen seventy he was summoned up north to a castle
(04:13):
in Scotland and there was another gentleman who was displeased
with Moray, or Stewart rather, and from an open window
fired a matchlock weapon at him matchlock carbine as it's
(04:34):
referred to as, and struck him down and killed him.
This guy's name was James Hamilton. Now, over a period
of tom I think much has been forgotten about that case.
But every single day, Dave in the news, we hear
about people that die as a result of gunfire. It's
(04:57):
part and parcel of who we are in America. A
reality whether regardless of how you think about or feel
feel about weapons farms specifically, it's the reality that we
have to deal with in forensics and all the remains
of individuals who have in fact been shot dead.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
When I look at gunshow, my fear is when people
don't respect them properly, and when because you see the
damage that can be done when you see it up
close and personally, it's shocking. I look back at our history,
you know, and I think about you mentioned JFK, and
I think about the weapon used with that and all
(05:42):
of the experts that came into play about that shooting
of JFK and what they had to say about that
man liquor Carcano. I don't know that's how you pronounced it.
I've heard it some different ways. But you've got a
cheap twelve dollars mail order rife that supposedly took down
the leader of the Free world from the third floor
(06:05):
of the school at Texas school book depository, from a
shot that couldn't be made by experts, and he wasn't
even a you know, he was not a good shot.
And I think about those types of things, and I
think about how you, as an expert, have to figure out,
I mean, where did it come from, how did it happen?
(06:26):
Is it even possible that this gun fired that projectile
and hit this victim? You have to figure that out
based on what's left. And I have trouble figuring that
out when I see the whole thing on film.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, you do, and think about it is what's very
interesting about the assassination of Kennedy is that Kennedy's gunshot
ones that he sustained were a typical in this sense.
Most of the time in America, we don't have, like
(07:03):
on a day to day basis, farms related deaths that
come about as a result of a rifled weapon being fired,
or let me rephrase that, a long arm being fired.
And when I say that, like a shoulder fired weapon.
Pistols are rifled, but you know the term rifle. When
people hear the term rifle, they think a long arm
(07:26):
or shoulder fired arm, and those are the exception and
not the norm. The line share of people that meet
their end in America as a result of gunplay does
a result of handgun.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And isn't it odd that every time we have a
shooting of any type, the two things they want to
ban assault rifles that aren't used in the crime and
other military style weapons that oftentimes are not used in
the crime. It's usually a handgun. And yet you never
get a battle over handguns. That's never because it just
(08:01):
doesn't make any kind of political sense. But that's a
different discussion for a different let me ask you this show. Yeah,
but if I if somebody were to be creating hell
on Earth with a firearm taking out the leader of
the free world, would it better be Would it be
better to use a rifle that is made to shoot
if you're shooting from a long distance, a hunting type
(08:21):
rifle or military type rifle.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Well, here's the thing. The genesis for most civilian hunting weapons,
the genesis is military military application. That's where as a
matter of fact, for years in my grandfather he fired.
He had a thirty out six rifle. He had a
(08:45):
thirty thirty rifle, and they were lever action rifles, you know,
like old cowboy, but you know, the thirty out six. Yeah,
exactly like the rifleman from the sixties. Oh yeah, Chuck
Conners man. But baseball. Yeah. And I think you played
basketball too, didn't he for the sixers? I think, yeah, yeah,
bless his heart. You know, with rifles in particular, our
(09:10):
troops came back from World War One, and the cartridge
that those soldiers and marines were familiar with when they
got back home was referred to as the thirty out six,
and thirty out six became the gold Center. Still by
some measure today it is for hunting, you know, kind
(09:30):
of mid sized game like individuals that can go out
and hunt deer and maybe wild hog or you know
things like this. Well, that cartridge itself had its origin
with a nineteen oh three rifle. It's a bolt action
rifle that we had that all of our troops were issued.
Now you talk about if someone is plotting an assassination,
(09:56):
first off, there are examples of people that have walked
up on the individuals and shot them, you know, at
very close range. To presidents in particular, I can think
of well, actually three if you count Lincoln, but Garfield
who died and he was shot at a train station.
(10:17):
You had Teddy Roosevelt who was shot with a pistol
and the only thing that saved his life was he
had a I think it was a silver cigar case
that was in his pocket and it deflected the round.
He still caught shrapnel and still kept Hey. That's why
Teddy Roosevelt's one of my favorite presidents. He kept on
giving the speech. Yeah that I mean, you know, I mean,
(10:41):
you take whoever you want. I'm going with Teddy Roosevelt
every time. I love Teddy. And and then of course
you have you have Lincoln, who was famously assassinated, you know,
with with a pistol an old darringer. So if but
if you're looking for precision, and that's what a long
(11:02):
arm gives individuals, that's generally where your mind is going
to drift to. You know, somebody in a sniper's nest.
You know, our troopers that are deployed all around the world,
we have people that are snipers. In fact, it's actually
a term that comes from from Scotland sniper. Those were
(11:22):
people that were game wardens and hunters out there and
they invented like the gilly suit, you know, where they're
wearing all the rags all over their body and they
can low crawl and approach. Well, we adopted that in
the military, and the military uses it for military applications.
But when you're wanting to reach out a great distance,
(11:43):
you know, you want to use a long arm as
it choose to.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
You're talking about the pistols there, and I didn't realize,
I A, I had forgot about Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, most people do.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, But when I was thinking about assassination, you know,
we're talking about JFK. I was thinking about how Lincoln McKinley.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
McKinley, I forgot him.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
And Garfield and Garfield and Bobby Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
And Bobby Kennedy, we're all shot with handguns.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah yeah, Now all right, is it a different term
pistol and handgun or.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
No, No, it's not. It's they're essentially interchangeable.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
But a pistol isn't necessarily a revolver, right, No, it's not.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So you have let's break this down kind of logically
so everybody can follow. So weapons generally fall into two categories.
So firearms, that is in the modern sense. So we're
going to have long arms, which are rifled weapons that
fire a projectile that spins down the barrel because the
(12:51):
grooves in the barrel. Okay, it's kind of like and
I'll tell you why. And that's actually called rifling. Now
i'll tell you why it was developed. It was developed
around about the same time as the Civil War occurred
in America, and before that we were firing smooth bore muskets.
And that means that you've got this huge chunk of
(13:13):
lead that's traveling down a smooth boar barrel and it's
kind of bouncing along as it goes through the barrel,
and it's not making the most out of the energy
that's provided by the explosion in the rear, so its
ability to travel a great distance and bring power on
target drops precipitously. But if you escalate up to say,
(13:37):
for instance, the rifled round of you know, like that
fired the mini ball, You've got a fifty eight caliber round,
huge chunk of metal going down range in one of
these in one of these civil war weapons. That thing's
rifle and it's spinning. So if you think about somebody
that has taken a football, for instance, you ever see
(14:00):
anybody and I've done it, You've probably done it. Throw
football and it comes out of your hand as a
wounded duck. You've ever seen that, and it kind of
flops through the air. You don't get a tight spiral
on it. It's the same principle with a bullet. If
you take a football and you can throw a tight spiral,
it preserves energy and it gives you more distance any
more accurate with it. Same thing. So if you compare
(14:21):
a wounded duck football throw with a musket, okay, smooth bore,
and then you take a rifled weapon with a tight spiral,
that's kind of a simplistic way of looking at it.
And so we have long arms. And also following in
the category of long arms, many times there are shotguns. And
so shotguns are smooth bore, okay, but they're meant for close,
(14:47):
close engagements, but further away than say a pistol would
be usedful and they bring they put a lot of
power and a lot of energy on target. So that's
you know, you've got those two groups of long arms.
So the other group of weapons that we commonly encounter,
particularly in investigations out on the streets, are handguns, and
(15:12):
they break out in a modern sense. And again I'm
qualifying these things in the modern sense. I'm not talking
about like the weapon that President Lincoln was assassinated with,
which was a muzzle loading muzzle loading derringer that you
had to use a ramrod to press the you know,
(15:32):
to get the projectile down the barrel that had to
be primed and then it was fired. I'm talking about
now multi shot weapons that we encounter on the streets
in investigations, and with handguns, those are generally going to
fall into two categories. So you're going to have revolvers,
(15:53):
which old guys call them wheel guns as well, and
you've seen you've seen, you know, revolvers in all manner
of television shows over the years, old Westerns, you know,
even detective programs from back in as late as the eighties,
because it's what cops carried. Cops had classically, they had
(16:17):
the six inch Smith and Western thirty eight special revolver
with ann iron sight and so the cylinder that the
bullets and most of the time most revolvers hold six rounds.
Sometimes you'll find them a whole five, and you have
others that will hold more, but those are kind of outlayers.
(16:37):
The as the hammer is actuated and pulled back, you'll
see the cylinder kind of spin and it puts it
on a fresh round and you've only got six, okay,
six times to fire this thing, and then you have
to reload. It's kind of cumbersome. And that's the way,
you know, we kind of saw this change happened back
in the eighties with service weapons that police acers were carrying,
(17:01):
and they went from revolvers, which they had carried for
years and years, to semi automatic handguns. Top of the
list probably to begin with some of the ones you saw.
There were two groups that you saw being employed by
law enforcement agencies. To begin with, those were glocks, which
everybody's heard of now it's an Austrian made weapon. It's
(17:24):
got a polymer frame. And then there were Barrettas, which
is an Italian weapon. And the reason that Barretta was
very popular was because it's what our military troops carried
in all branches, because they had carried the forty five
for years and years, and forty five ACP has a
(17:47):
storied history. But again it could only hold up to
seven rounds, not sufficient to the task. Weapons now the
semi automatic weapon that police officers carry. If you're watching
these videos you know that are that are on YouTube
(18:07):
and these sorts of things, and you're watching them, uh,
these live shooting instances, you'll see the cop fire multiple
times and it seems like it's never going to end.
And that's because the magazines which hold these rounds are
you know, in the double digits, these rounds and so
and then they've got multiple magazines on their belts. So
(18:29):
when you see a cop wearing wearing their utility gear,
you'll see, you know, magazine holders and you'll see them.
And that's one of the skills you have to develop.
You have to be able to drop drop a magazine,
reload and get back into the fight. And that's one
of the things that's taught in military as well. So
we've got long arms, rifles and shotguns. Then we've got handguns,
(18:55):
which are generally gonna be revolvers. They're still revolvers that
people carry. I know people that prefer for revolvers over
semi automatics. And then you've got the semi automatics, your glocks,
Bretta sixth hour, which I think is what the military
has gone to now hk's and some of these can
(19:16):
cost into the thousands and thousands of dollars, and they
come in a variety of calibers as well. You know, Dave,
(19:38):
I've made mention of the first autopsy I ever participated in,
which was a bludgeoning death. God had been beaten to
death with a baseball bat at the hand of his
brother something.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, I'm a horrible shot, but I'm excellent with the
Louisville slugger.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
And there you go.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Tasted it all at my doors and I've all it
out the barrel and put my area. If you come
into my house, you're not You're not walking out just
you know.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
When I get to our blunt force blunt blunt force
drama lecture, I'm going to rely heavily upon you with
that because we will talk about baseball paths. Uh. The
first homicide or the first death I was ever involved
in as an autopsy technician was actually a bludgeoning. A
(20:26):
god had been beaten to death by baseball with a
baseball bat. The first scene that ever went on where
I was the primary investigator was actually a gunshot wound.
And that's you know, I know people might think, well,
that's not unusual, Morgan. Well yet it is. Because you
work for the corner. You handle all manners of death,
and generally firearms related deaths are the least of what
(20:49):
you handle. You handle the fewest of those.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
You told me that, Joe watching the news and politics, Yeah,
everybody in America had a gun loaded and cocked and
ready to take something.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
And that everybody's dying on a gun. Yeah, I know,
Well the news.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
That's what we did. We got a cup of coffee,
shot somebody.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
And yeah, most our will get you fished in by that.
The line's share of deaths that you work as an investigator,
even going out on the field. In my field, I'm
not talking about it as a homicide detective. I'm talking
as medical legal death investigator. Are going to be naturals,
but it just so happened. The first one, the first
case that ever worked by myself in the field, was
(21:29):
a gunshot wound and it was with kind of an
interesting weapon. It was a twenty two magnum revolver, which
is actually a very powerful You think of a twenty two,
which is that's an imperial measurement, and we can talk
about calibers. Twenty two is essentially zero point two inches
(21:50):
in circumference around the actual projectile, and that's where you
get that number. But that's an imperial measurement which was
given to us by the British and we adopted that.
So anytime you hear caliber, that's what we're talking about.
That's an imperial measurement. But other so called measurements for
weapons are done metric. That's why you hear and you
(22:11):
hear it in a lot of songs that are out
there that popularly talking about a nine millimeter nine millimeter glock,
you know, and so nine millimeter is probably the most
popular round, but that measurement is done in millimeters, so
and you've got ten milimeter pistols or handguns, but you know,
(22:32):
you have rifle rounds that one of the most popular
to the most popular for hunting are six millimeter and
seven millimeter. So and it's hard. There's no like, there's
no debt one match for these. When you compare the
imperial system, which is rooted in Great Britain, to the
metric system or you know, the millimeter system, if you will,
(22:55):
for measuring measuring rounds even you know, look, even in
the mill terry, you have to learn the metric measurement
for firearms. So you know, like the standard round for
years and years in the military has been a five
point five to six millimeters round. That's what goes into
the rifle. And it's roughly about the size believe it
(23:17):
or not, Dave, The diameter of the circumference of the
actual round itself is about roughly the size of a
twenty two round. It's not that big. It's just the
amount of powder or propellant that's placed into that particular round,
and then the weight of the bullet is it's larger.
The projectile is actually larger than say even a twenty
(23:39):
two long rifle, and so the amount of powder that's
put behind it, the propellant. When that round hits something,
it can rip it apart. And most of those rounds
are what are called flangible frangible fragmenting rounds, so when
they hit a target, they kind of come apart. And
so you've got these tiny, little particulate rounds that are
(24:03):
going into a body or bits of shrapnel and they're
ripping things to shreds in there as well. So there's
a huge variety and it takes it takes you a
while to get used to this environment, you know, to
try to be able to spink to lingo because it's
it's certainly a it's certainly a language all and of itself.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Okay, but when you're actually looking at a body on scene, yeah,
are you able are you able to understand what weapon
or what type of weapon was used before you get
them back? I mean, can you look at a body
and go, yeah, that's a twenty two? I mean do
you can you do that? Or do you what happens
on scene when you're dealing with somebody who is a
(24:43):
victim of a being shot.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
That's an excellent question because you you will see portrayed
in movies. And I've even been around colleagues that will
say that looks like a twenty two or that looks
like a nine, and I would I'll learned early on
in my career not to say that, because I was
proven wrong so many times once we got back to
the Morgue. And interestingly enough, Dave when I write, or
(25:09):
wrote when I was writing, and I still teach my
students this at Jack State. When you write a report, okay,
I I never say in one of my reports involving gunplay,
I never say that the subject has a gunshot wound
(25:31):
to the anterior chest, or to the posterior chest, or
to the hit. I'll say that the individual has a
circular or irregular shaped defect. Because if I call that,
if I call that defect or that hole in the
body a gunshot wound in the field, and then that
body has to make it back to the morgue. Well,
(25:54):
when the forends of pathologist gets that the body in
a in perfect conditions for examination with the surgical lights
and everything, first off, they might look at that and say, yeah,
that's that's not a gunshot wound. That person was pierced
by something here that might resemble a gunshot wound, or
(26:16):
this is the tail end of a laceration. It's not
a gunshot wound. But yet I've gone ahead and put
it in an official report. And then if the pathologist
report comes out, those two things are conflicting. When they're subpoena,
you know, and they can put you on the stand
and say, well, look, you know, you're a pathologist here,
(26:36):
made a statement that this is a gunshot wound. But
yet you're saying or that you said that it's a
gunshot wound, but they're saying that it's something other than that.
Who should we believe? And again, that's that kernel, that
seed that's planted for reasonable doubts. So you have to
be real careful with your.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Verbiage, evening your thinking about if this goes to trial,
if I'm called. That's in the back of your head
every step of the way.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, it is. And that's why it's so important that
you remain very, very clinical. You know, when you're at
a scene. First off, you're you're at a great disadvantage
day in the field. And I've mentioned this before. I'm
not whining about it. I'm just saying you don't have
like the same advantages you do, and the more to
examine a body because the lighting is insufficient. You know,
you try to go out in the middle of the woods,
(27:23):
in the middle of the night, on a moonless night,
overcast night. You can't see your hand in front of
your face, but yet you're you are going to attempt
to give a detailed description of something that has got
little tears in it that measure maybe one centimeter. Because
(27:43):
of the orientation of the around when it goes through
the body, You're incapable of doing that in that environment.
So that's why I spoke very broadly, you know, when
I would write, and I would recommend to anybody that's
going into forensics that you speak very broadly about field
with feeling reports, particularly when it comes to injuries, because
you don't know. One of the most embarrassing things that
(28:05):
can happen is to have some lawyer get you hip
on stand and the first you know, they'll talk to
you in general terms, what your background and what's your
experience and all this, and they might say, hey, look,
I was looking here at your CV you know, your resume,
and I see that you graduated with your master's degree
in forensic science. But where'd you go to medical school.
(28:29):
I didn't go to medical school. But yet you've made
an assessment at the scene that this is a gunshot Once.
Certainly you have to have medical training in order to
be that. Are you a board certified forensic pathologist? No, sir,
I'm not so, even though I might be the best
investigator in the world. All the while he's asking me
(28:49):
these questions that I have to respond negatively to. Who's listening, Well,
the jury's listening. So that's why with gunshot wounds in particular,
I'm a bit cagy about it because I've gotten burned.
I've had friends that have really gotten burned, and I
learned from forensic pathologists, you know they I had one
old friends of pathologist that told me, let me bear
(29:10):
the burden of that. You just indicate to me where
you see defects in the body. It's like people will
I'm amazed at when I go out on scenes, I'll
have people will say, well, this is an entrance and
this is an exit wound. Well, how do you know that?
How do you know that that's an entrance? Oh, because
entrance is always smaller than the exit. Prove it Joe. Well,
(29:32):
i've seen cases before. Well, I've seen a lot of
cases too, and I've seen cases particularly like individuals that
are struck from behind in the shoulder blade, that flat bone,
and it's a very nasty injury, and it might give
you the appearance that it's an exit, where it's actually
an entrance. People shot in the spiny process in their
next many times that kind of blows out and it
(29:55):
gives the impression of an exit very well might be
an entrance. And so you can't make that determination in
the field.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
You're right back, right back the middle of JFK. Now,
because in the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, there was
always a battle over the neck wound, yes, you know,
and they ended up using the neck wound to actually
put a track.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Started an airway. Yeah, and that's hey, look, that's commonly done, right.
It's it's not like that's abnormal.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Right, not like they messed it up or anything.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
No, no, no, no no. And you would still see
some evidence, like, for instance, when the president was shot,
and this goes into an assessment of range of fire,
which is very important in what we do. When the
president was shot, regardless of who fired the weapon and
from where it was coming from when you examined his body,
(30:53):
and if it had actually been examined by Earl Rose
instead of those buffoons on the East coast.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
That went and creating to go back and listen to
our body back the assassination of JFK.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Please do it was the biggest clown show and face
the planet. And you know, Earl Rose almost went to
jail over that because he Doctor Rose was in the
in the hallway at Parkland and he was fighting or
he was protesting to Secret Service and he, according to him,
one of the agents actually put their hand on their
weapon and saying said, the presence body is leaving here.
(31:26):
And he was like, I'm I'm the legal authority here.
You know this is this is a homicide in Dallas County.
And we talked about that extensively. But you know, doctor
Rose was actually involved in the autopsies of Tippett who
was allegedly shutting by Oswald, and he did Oswald's autopsy
as well. Interestingly enough, I believe if I'm not mistaken,
(31:50):
you know, Dave, I think he actually did Jack Ruby's autopsy.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
What the same guy.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, he died, He died in the City Jail of
cancer and I think he actually did that autopsy as well,
and that several years later. But you know, you think
about the intersection. If only if only doctor Rose had
been had been allowed to assess President's injuries, you know,
because he would have probably, first off, he would have
(32:17):
arrived at a different conclusion because that body would have
been secured in his morgue and not be flown a
thousand miles or highever the how far it is to Bethesda,
you know, from from love Field, and he could have
done that assessment appropriately incorrectly. But you know, with President
Kennedy shooting, that's what we would refer to as around
(32:42):
fired from a distance, and when you're trying to assess
the range of fire, you're in to another complete level
as far as forensic examinations go. Dave, I tell you
(33:08):
JFK has always been a head scratcher. It from what
I can tell at this point, it will always be
a head scratcher. But you know what, we we had
the advantage of always reflecting back to science, and that's
what keeps us grounded.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
When you did the show, and I was so thankful
you did it because there are so many things that
the average shoe doesn't know. All we hear are the theories.
Ohen you get down of the forensics of what actually happened,
and you're saying, here's all the things they did to
make sure we would never know the truth. That's a
real problem. But you were just talking about range of fire,
(33:43):
and I'm concerned and curious about how how can you
determine I mean, you've got a bullet being fired from
a weapon. Yeah, how can you determine range of fire?
I mean, I guess I understand stiffling, so I could
understand a contact wound if you're you know, touching my again,
I'm going to get But beyond that, how can you
really tell how far it was?
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Well, with the president, some people will use the term
long range shot, and yeah, it is a long range shot,
but scientifically that means nothing. So what does that mean? Well,
it's actually an indeterminate range if you want to look
at it from a purely clinical sense, because there's no
(34:26):
way like once you get out beyond Some people will
debate you about this. Some people say it's eighteen inches.
I hear people say all the way after thirty six inches.
Once you get beyond that our marker right there, there's
no President Kennedy could have been shot from thirty Let's
just say we'll be generous from thirty six inches out
to infinity and there wouldn't be any evidence on the body. Okay,
(34:51):
all you're going to have is a defect. Now, the
one thing that you see with indeterminate range, if you're
talking about a rifled round that's passing. I encourage anybody
that hasn't seen the quote unquote magic bullet. That bullet
has been fired. It's got rifling on it, and you
(35:12):
can actually see it running down the long axis. It's
just that it's so intact, you know. But that's a story.
That's a story I've already told. Actually, But when you
see the wound that is generated traditionally, because you know,
President Kennedy's body got so kind of boogered up and
(35:32):
orientation was all off and everything else. But if you
look at an indetermined range projectile or projectile that has
been fired from an indeterminate range, the only thing you're
going to see is what's referred to as a friction ring.
And what that means is going back to my example
(35:52):
of tight spiral on a football. It's spinning. Okay, well,
think about a spinning This is painful to think about,
all right, just this in and of itself, and you
wouldn't notice it when you're being shot. But as that
bullet is spinning, and it is spinning like nobody's business,
all right, when it strikes. When it strikes the skin,
(36:14):
it actually Dave twists the skin like this. Okay, So
you get this abrasion ring around a circular defect, and
you'll see the little abraided area where it kind of twist.
I've actually, I could have sworn before I've actually seen
on the hour marker the outer margins of one of
these things, little kind of hash marks that look like
(36:40):
indication of rifling, you know, and they're kind of at
a they're kind of fan shaped. Doctor told me, I
was out of my mind. I wasn't really seeing that,
so I was like, oh, okay, well whatever. But anyway,
it twists, It twists the skin, and that friction that's
created on the skin just for that moment, you know,
it it upbraids that area, it tears the skin, It
(37:01):
in salts the skin. But beyond that, you're not going
to have any powder deposition there's not going to be
any debris blown out of the barrel because none of
that crap is aerodynamics. So let's just say you're in
that multi storied structure of the Texas school Book Suppository
Depository that you're standing. You're up there, and you're in
(37:25):
a sniper's nest, and you're firing this round. Well, by
the time that round reaches the end of the muzzle, okay,
which is in a twinkling of an eye, that round
is going down range and it's leaving a cloud behind it.
And you can see this in high speed camera slow
motion on weapons. I encourage everybody to go look these
(37:47):
up on the inner zones out there. You see this
kind of cloud that rises up out of the barrel,
and the projectile actually emerges from that. Well, just take
a look in that slow and they're everywhere. When you
see them, that slow motion cloud that's coming out doesn't
(38:07):
go very far. As a matter of fact, really quickly
you can see it begin to descend to the Earth.
None of that stuff is has the aerodynamic qualities that
a spinning lead core projectile has as it's going down
range and it can stay on target for a protracted time.
So it's not carrying any of that debris with it.
(38:28):
So when you have an indetermined range, you know that
if you're in court, you know, the attorney might say, well, gee, whiz,
how far away was this round or was the shooter?
You know, when I don't know, I have no idea.
So you're telling me with all your knowledge. Yeah, I'm
telling you, based upon a lot of scientific study over
(38:48):
the years, that it's impossible to tell because there's there's
no deposition. Now when you get into what we would
refer to as we'll kind of do these backwards, it's
when you're the next tier to this is going to
be like an intermediate range. You look at a case
of well, if you just look at, for instance, Oswald,
(39:12):
when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby in the garage,
you can see him, I mean, and there's that classic
freeze frame where he's kind of hunched over and he's
got this pained look on his face and Ruby is
extending that snubnose thirty eight caliber revolver. He's holding a
revolver here and he fires it at Ruby. Well, Ruby
(39:35):
is in kind of a and this goes to what
we're trying to figure out. Also with trajectory. Ruby is
kind of tilted down like this when he shot, he
kind of hunches like this. You know that round actually
traveled downward in his body. I mean it passed through
several several organ systems. He didn't have a he didn't
(39:55):
have a shot, no pun intended of surviving. But that's
an inner immediate round with him intermediate range, So you know,
it's hard to determine from because you're seeing it. It's
kind of kind of like, uh, it's kind of like
Ruby's POV, but you're behind Ruby, and it's hard to
(40:18):
gauge distance in depth from that range. But I would
say that based upon the muzzle position relative to Ruby,
I mean relative to Oswald when that weapon was fired,
you might see some deposition. Now, do you remember, Dave,
what color sweater Ruby was wearing when he was shot?
Speaker 2 (40:39):
No, well, when Ruby was shot, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
I'm sorry, when Oswald was shot, I keep now.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
I just I can remember as the picture that was
in the newspaper that you know, basically shows him like
you were, just you know, bent over and the pained
look on his face.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
I don't remember much else he's wearing. He's wearing a
black sweater and a white shirt. The collar is kind
of popping up out of it, and you know, if
we were to look at his body, you know he
was actually taken to Parkland. He died in the same
area that the President died in. No, he did, he did.
I think it tipp It was taken to Parkland too,
Uh but yeah, so yeah, I mean they were if
(41:16):
I remember this, some of this might be Lord, that's
coming back up in my mind. I think they were
in adjacent trauma rooms. He was adjacent to the room
that the president had been brought into when they started
running the code on it.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Well, I mean it makes sense that. I mean, you've
got it spell and you bring certain victims into certain rooms.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, it's a level of whatever it's called, level one
trauma center.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
I think I would imagine that that that actually, as
weird as it is, makes perfectly good sense.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah. Can you imagine being a nurse on duty that
day and you had handled the president and now you
got the guy who's been on the news. But anyway,
he's wearing a black sweater. So I got to tell you, Dave,
this is where our testing comes in, because if you
just try to eyeball that sweater to get an idea
of any kind of debris that's on that sweater. You're
(42:02):
not going to see it with the unaided eye. That sweater.
Hopefully they saved it. You know, hospital emergency rooms have
a bad habit of cutting things off. You know, you
see that portrayed many times, and it's a real thing.
If they preserve that sweater, and the sweater would be
taken to the crime lab and they could analyze it,
and they could actually use alternative lighting and chemical testing
(42:26):
to give you the deposition of the gunshot residue that's
on the outside of that sweater, and it'll give you
a range fire. So just imagine this. You're if you're
firing an intermediate range, the deposition of the powder that
is embedded either on an article of clothing or on skin,
(42:51):
is going to be greatly spread out. It's kind of
like a water hose, you know, when you put it
on spray mode, and it kind of looks like a
fountain coming out out of its spreading. For the closer
you get to the nozzle, the tighter it gets. So
with that, if he's within let's just say it's eighteen inches,
it might be I don't know, the deposition could be
(43:12):
I'm just spitballing here, maybe twelve inches by twelve inches.
That's the deposition that you're talking about high and low
or high and wide, and that deposition is going to dictate. Now,
what they would have done is they will take that
same pistol that Ruby used and go to the state
crime Lab and they will fire. And this is something
(43:32):
we have to have done by the crime lab. You
turn that over to the Ballistic Section firearms examination, and
they have an indoor range where they'll go and they'll
take a white T shirt and it's really impressive if
you've never seen this done. White T shirt, hang it
up and they will fire at various ranges into fresh
white T shirts. And as they get closer and closer,
(43:53):
that deposition tightens up and tightens up. And there's always
that the defect in the sweater. This always constant. You know,
it's right there, but as you're getting closer and closer,
it's tightening down.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Do they have to put the shirt on something else
that actually can simulate.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
The No, No, no, they'll they'll hang it. They generally
hang it and do it. Now, that's different types of
testing than say in a ballistic slab where they go
and they fire into a tank filled with cotton strips
of cotton, or they fire into a water tank that's
got a catch basin in the bottom, and that way
(44:31):
they can Let's say we take a projectile out at autopsy.
All right, let's say they'll removed the projectile out of
out of Oswle's body, fired from Ruby's gun. Well, that
that projectile more than likely that thirty eight special round
is going to be deformed in some way. It's not
going to be pristine. Oh exactly.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Last it goes to the President of the United States
and ends up on the and.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Makes a left hand turn it. Yeah, it goes through
the other guy's wrist, and yeah, where you go to do.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Break seven bones and stelling it Christine, you know what
that was the That's the metal that was used in
Iron Man. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, no kidding. And one of the things, you know,
one of the things you're looking for is to try
to compare the question weapon, which would be the projectile
or the question projectile that you recover from the body
with the round that's fired out of Ruby's gun. And
you compare the two and people will say, well, you
(45:30):
know what it was on TV. It's his weapon that
doesn't stand TV, doesn't stand up in sorry to I'm
sorry to burst your bubble. That has to be tested
and scientifically, they have to do a comparison if thing
were to go to trial. Of course, Uh, you know
it is what it is. Uh, and you try to
compare it. Now, the closer you get to where you're
(45:53):
in a circumstance where you've got a a round that's fired,
let's say, how can I say it. You've got a
round that is fired at an individual, say it what
would be called close range. Close range. You're going to
be within a couple of inches of the target. And buddy,
(46:13):
when you see, when you see the damage that's done,
that powder, the unburned powder in particular, rages out of
that weapon, and say, if it strikes skin, you're going
to have it's going to look like this is kind
of disgusting. It's going to look like a huge collection
of blackheads to most people the first time they see it,
(46:35):
like a huge concentrate you're looking at you're thinking, this
is really bizarre. But of course you've got a defect
right in a hole, right in the center of it,
but it's surrounded by all this kind of unburned powder,
and that unburned powder actually gets beneath the skin. It's there.
So if you took a section of that skin and
you cut it and you put it on microscopic slide,
(46:57):
guess what When you look at that section microscopically, you
can actually see the powder. And what I mean by
that the unburned powder. Powder comes in different shapes depended
upon the actual granules of powder. You can have disc shape,
cylindrical shape, you can have pyramidial shaped powder. And I'm
(47:22):
talking about the individual grains of powder that come from
a particular company. So that's kind of an identifier that
can be used by ballistics.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Experts that come from a specific company.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Yeah, yeah, because each manufacturer might make a powder where
the individual grains of powder are in a particular shape
and that shape is unique to them. So, you know,
we try to find all of these components that we
can in addition to doing regular gunshot residue testing where
we're looking for chemical chemical evidence, you know, where we're
(47:58):
looking for barium, antimony, and lead, which are components of
of actual gunpowder or propelling I prefer to use the
term propell and as opposed to gunpowder.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
When they do the test to see if I fired
a gun. Yeah, if I have fired a weapon, is
that that was it?
Speaker 1 (48:17):
The GSR Yeah, GSR gunshot rose do testing, okay.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
And that's where you're going to be able to tell
if I wash my hands, I shoot a weapon, wash
my hands, scrub them down her Are you still going
to build test me?
Speaker 1 (48:28):
No? Probably not that quick you can me gone. Yeah.
As a matter of fact, there's even evidence that people
put that put their hands in their pockets after firing
a weapon. Uh, you know, compromise the concentration of it,
right and listen, just because you have it on your
hands doesn't mean you fire a weapon, right, and you
may have held a weapon, it means that you were
in proximity to a weapon. They did one study Dave
(48:50):
years ago, uh, testing people that worked in an ammunition factory,
and they were testing them every day as they were
leaving and they're actually putting together components of large, large projectiles,
and they were getting they were getting like forty five
(49:10):
percent negatives on these individuals and even worse than even
worse than that is back and this existed before I
came into the field, they used to paraffine tests, which
were where you would have a suspect place their hand
into warm wax and they would peel the wax off
of the hands and whatever it captured. It's the same
(49:31):
thing as doing a tape lift. So you're looking for
that residue that's contained within you know this. I don't
know if you want to call it a medium or resin,
whatever it is, but it's called a paraffine test. So
after you get past close range, then you have what's
referred to as press contact or hard contact. Dependent upon
(49:52):
where you are and where you studied, you'll and what
pathologists you've worked around. In my field, they'll call it
different things. I've heard hard contact, press contact, and most
of the time you see press and hard contact wounds
with self inflicted wounds. And it's most of the time
I've always felt it's because the individual is purposed. They
(50:13):
want to assure or insure rather that they are going
to get the job done. Now, when you have this occur,
that round that is being initiated, when it travels out
of the musle, that weapon, it's creating a cavity in
the head. Okay, let's just say it's a self inflicted
(50:34):
to the head, or you could use a sterm as well,
because that happens too, and it's pressed and it's like
pressed hard against the skin and it creates a seal.
You know, when that weapon is discharged, it's not just
the projectile coming out. We've already talked about unburned powder.
You've got smoke that's coming out. But the other thing
(50:55):
you've got that's coming out, and the reason press gun
top press contact gunshot ones are so destructive is that
you've got heated gas coming out. And we all know
from eighth grade physical science class that heated gas expands,
and it expands at a rapid rate, so you'll get
(51:15):
these grotesque injuries to the head. And it's not just
the projectile doing it. It's also that gas expanding inside
the cranial vault and you'll see fractures that run along
the suture lines. If you know what a suture line is,
it's when you look at a human skull. You've got
these wavy lines. We've talked about this before where the
skull kind of interlocks with one another and you'll many
(51:39):
times you'll see it literally fracture along the suture lines,
both posteriorly anteriorly laterally, and it's devastating. And then the
bone after it passes through bone, those bits of bone
become trapnel.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
There's that guy in Philadelphia that did the shot himself
during the city council meeting. Remember that was on tea.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Yea, yeah it was. It was actually Bud Dwire it
was he was actually he was the former treasurer of
the State of Pennsylvania. I actually got to see that
raw footage. You could see his head expand well, yeah,
and you can you can see if you look very carefully,
he uses I think that's a cult python. I think
(52:22):
it's a three point fifty seven that he's using, and
it's an inter oral gunshot one. So it's a great
example of the expansion of gas because when he fires.
Back in the day, when we got that tape, we
put it on uh and we got it at the
coroner's office. We had that tape on like the most
(52:42):
high end VCR that there was at the time. It
had and I don't understand about the technology. I think
multiple heads in it and so it could slow things down. Yeah,
and you could see a flash inside of his mouth
and I've seen these. I've had cases where people videotape
themselves and you see the cheeks expand like a chipmunk,
(53:04):
and you'll get what a refer to as striya, which
are the same as stretch marks. You'll get striya on
the cheeks because it expands so fast, because the rapid
expansion of the gas that it creates these these curvelinear
lines that are called striya and their stretch marks essentially.
(53:25):
But it's an acute stretch mark. It's not like somebody's
getting heavier or whatever in life and you know their
limbs are beginning or the diameter of their legs are
beginning to expand, or they're tummy or whatever. It's different
than that. It's a real unique feature that you see.
And then not to mention the damage that the round
is creating as it's traveling through the body.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
That's just amazing. I remember that video of his head
that the one thing I remember is that it stretched.
It was almost cartoonish. Yeah, very quick, but it was
so shocking that I've only seen it once or twice
and I remember it and it was many years ago
in a newsroom when I saw and I just this
is when you were explaining that, I was wondering.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
No, I actually I'm glad you brought that up. I
actually showed that video in every year when I do
my lecture of medical legal death Investigation on firearms related
death because and it's a great example of the camera
never blinks. I don't know who the camera operator was,
but they stayed on him as he kind of slides
down the wall, and you can appreciate the volume of
blood that issues forth from the nose in the mouth,
(54:25):
and a lot of that has to do with how
thin the floor is of the hard palette is, you know,
leading up into the skull. It's almost eggshell like in
thickness or thinness, I guess, and so it kind of
it shatters like that, and the brain is so vascular,
you know, you have this copious amount of blood that's
coming out, and you if you listen very carefully on
(54:48):
that tape, Dave, you can actually hear the blood flowing,
which is something I've never encountered before, you know, and
I was, you know, from a practitioner standpoint, I was
fascinated by that. But it's a great teaching tool because
you really begin to kind of understand the power and
(55:08):
the destructive nature of firearms. And for those of us
that work in forensics, that teach forensics, or that formerly
worked in our field, an understanding of firearms and their
function their purpose is essential to being a successful investigator.
To understand the science and the mechanism of modern firearms,
(55:34):
because if you don't understand these things that you're encountering
out on the street, there's no telling what kind of
interpretation you'll wind up making. So it's important that we
always say that we're studied up. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan,
and this is Bodybacks
Quality diners with Joseph Scott More. There are certain individuals
throughout history who, for whatever reason, have been linked to
specific historic events. One such person is a gentleman that
(00:21):
I have mentioned previously on body Backs who was the
chief medical examiner for Dallas. His name was doctor Earl Rose,
and for his time, he was highly educated, highly trained,
(00:46):
and was one of the leading experts in the country
on death investigation. It just so happens that his life
intersected with three of the principal people involved in the
JFK assassination, actually four, and three of the four had
(01:15):
something in common. They all died as a result of gunshot.
Ones today on body Bags, in a continuing effort to
offer our friends out there a bit of forensic education,
if you will, we're going to be talking about gunfire
(01:36):
and gunfire related deaths because let's face that, it's part
of the fabric of who we are in America. It
happens every single day. There are many cases out there
that are quite high profile, but there are others that
go without a whisper. But the one thing they have
in common is the trauma they are subjected to at
(02:02):
the hands of someone that has fired a weapon into
their body. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body backs.
It's really hard to know, looking back through time, who
the first victim of a gunshot wound was. And I'm
(02:27):
not even talking about lethal. We know that the Chinese
invented gunpowder, and we know that as early as the
twelve hundreds they had a firearm. This is something that
(02:47):
they would load. It's essentially a tube packed with gunpowder.
They would spark this thing off and they just put
all manner of trapnel down the barrel, which he turns
this into a gigantic shotgun, if you will, not very aerodynamic,
but for its time, I'm sure that it was quite
(03:08):
frightful for those that were on the business end of
the weapon. If you will, to have these items flying
through the air at you and slamming into your body.
Things that in the past maybe you wore armor for,
like to defeat a sword or a spear blow, were
(03:29):
insufficient to the task. And suddenly a whole new world
opened up in warfare and then eventually trickles down to
the civilian world. But we do know that there was
one gentleman that is the first recorded assassination victim by
(03:52):
someone that had fired a weapon. And this gent's name
and he's rather fashma. I'm looking at the image of
him right now. Was a guy named James Stewart, first
Earl of Moray, and back in I don't know, about
fifteen seventy he was summoned up north to a castle
(04:13):
in Scotland and there was another gentleman who was displeased
with Moray, or Stewart rather, and from an open window
fired a matchlock weapon at him matchlock carbine as it's
(04:34):
referred to as, and struck him down and killed him.
This guy's name was James Hamilton. Now, over a period
of tom I think much has been forgotten about that case.
But every single day, Dave in the news, we hear
about people that die as a result of gunfire. It's
(04:57):
part and parcel of who we are in America. A
reality whether regardless of how you think about or feel
feel about weapons farms specifically, it's the reality that we
have to deal with in forensics and all the remains
of individuals who have in fact been shot dead.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
When I look at gunshow, my fear is when people
don't respect them properly, and when because you see the
damage that can be done when you see it up
close and personally, it's shocking. I look back at our history,
you know, and I think about you mentioned JFK, and
I think about the weapon used with that and all
(05:42):
of the experts that came into play about that shooting
of JFK and what they had to say about that
man liquor Carcano. I don't know that's how you pronounced it.
I've heard it some different ways. But you've got a
cheap twelve dollars mail order rife that supposedly took down
the leader of the Free world from the third floor
(06:05):
of the school at Texas school book depository, from a
shot that couldn't be made by experts, and he wasn't
even a you know, he was not a good shot.
And I think about those types of things, and I
think about how you, as an expert, have to figure out,
I mean, where did it come from, how did it happen?
(06:26):
Is it even possible that this gun fired that projectile
and hit this victim? You have to figure that out
based on what's left. And I have trouble figuring that
out when I see the whole thing on film.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, you do, and think about it is what's very
interesting about the assassination of Kennedy is that Kennedy's gunshot
ones that he sustained were a typical in this sense.
Most of the time in America, we don't have, like
(07:03):
on a day to day basis, farms related deaths that
come about as a result of a rifled weapon being fired,
or let me rephrase that, a long arm being fired.
And when I say that, like a shoulder fired weapon.
Pistols are rifled, but you know the term rifle. When
people hear the term rifle, they think a long arm
(07:26):
or shoulder fired arm, and those are the exception and
not the norm. The line share of people that meet
their end in America as a result of gunplay does
a result of handgun.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And isn't it odd that every time we have a
shooting of any type, the two things they want to
ban assault rifles that aren't used in the crime and
other military style weapons that oftentimes are not used in
the crime. It's usually a handgun. And yet you never
get a battle over handguns. That's never because it just
(08:01):
doesn't make any kind of political sense. But that's a
different discussion for a different let me ask you this show. Yeah,
but if I if somebody were to be creating hell
on Earth with a firearm taking out the leader of
the free world, would it better be Would it be
better to use a rifle that is made to shoot
if you're shooting from a long distance, a hunting type
(08:21):
rifle or military type rifle.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Well, here's the thing. The genesis for most civilian hunting weapons,
the genesis is military military application. That's where as a
matter of fact, for years in my grandfather he fired.
He had a thirty out six rifle. He had a
(08:45):
thirty thirty rifle, and they were lever action rifles, you know,
like old cowboy, but you know, the thirty out six. Yeah,
exactly like the rifleman from the sixties. Oh yeah, Chuck
Conners man. But baseball. Yeah. And I think you played
basketball too, didn't he for the sixers? I think, yeah, yeah,
bless his heart. You know, with rifles in particular, our
(09:10):
troops came back from World War One, and the cartridge
that those soldiers and marines were familiar with when they
got back home was referred to as the thirty out six,
and thirty out six became the gold Center. Still by
some measure today it is for hunting, you know, kind
(09:30):
of mid sized game like individuals that can go out
and hunt deer and maybe wild hog or you know
things like this. Well, that cartridge itself had its origin
with a nineteen oh three rifle. It's a bolt action
rifle that we had that all of our troops were issued.
Now you talk about if someone is plotting an assassination,
(09:56):
first off, there are examples of people that have walked
up on the individuals and shot them, you know, at
very close range. To presidents in particular, I can think
of well, actually three if you count Lincoln, but Garfield
who died and he was shot at a train station.
(10:17):
You had Teddy Roosevelt who was shot with a pistol
and the only thing that saved his life was he
had a I think it was a silver cigar case
that was in his pocket and it deflected the round.
He still caught shrapnel and still kept Hey. That's why
Teddy Roosevelt's one of my favorite presidents. He kept on
giving the speech. Yeah that I mean, you know, I mean,
(10:41):
you take whoever you want. I'm going with Teddy Roosevelt
every time. I love Teddy. And and then of course
you have you have Lincoln, who was famously assassinated, you know,
with with a pistol an old darringer. So if but
if you're looking for precision, and that's what a long
(11:02):
arm gives individuals, that's generally where your mind is going
to drift to. You know, somebody in a sniper's nest.
You know, our troopers that are deployed all around the world,
we have people that are snipers. In fact, it's actually
a term that comes from from Scotland sniper. Those were
(11:22):
people that were game wardens and hunters out there and
they invented like the gilly suit, you know, where they're
wearing all the rags all over their body and they
can low crawl and approach. Well, we adopted that in
the military, and the military uses it for military applications.
But when you're wanting to reach out a great distance,
(11:43):
you know, you want to use a long arm as
it choose to.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
You're talking about the pistols there, and I didn't realize,
I A, I had forgot about Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, most people do.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, But when I was thinking about assassination, you know,
we're talking about JFK. I was thinking about how Lincoln McKinley.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
McKinley, I forgot him.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
And Garfield and Garfield and Bobby Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
And Bobby Kennedy, we're all shot with handguns.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah yeah, Now all right, is it a different term
pistol and handgun or.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
No, No, it's not. It's they're essentially interchangeable.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
But a pistol isn't necessarily a revolver, right, No, it's not.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So you have let's break this down kind of logically
so everybody can follow. So weapons generally fall into two categories.
So firearms, that is in the modern sense. So we're
going to have long arms, which are rifled weapons that
fire a projectile that spins down the barrel because the
(12:51):
grooves in the barrel. Okay, it's kind of like and
I'll tell you why. And that's actually called rifling. Now
i'll tell you why it was developed. It was developed
around about the same time as the Civil War occurred
in America, and before that we were firing smooth bore muskets.
And that means that you've got this huge chunk of
(13:13):
lead that's traveling down a smooth boar barrel and it's
kind of bouncing along as it goes through the barrel,
and it's not making the most out of the energy
that's provided by the explosion in the rear, so its
ability to travel a great distance and bring power on
target drops precipitously. But if you escalate up to say,
(13:37):
for instance, the rifled round of you know, like that
fired the mini ball, You've got a fifty eight caliber round,
huge chunk of metal going down range in one of
these in one of these civil war weapons. That thing's
rifle and it's spinning. So if you think about somebody
that has taken a football, for instance, you ever see
(14:00):
anybody and I've done it, You've probably done it. Throw
football and it comes out of your hand as a
wounded duck. You've ever seen that, and it kind of
flops through the air. You don't get a tight spiral
on it. It's the same principle with a bullet. If
you take a football and you can throw a tight spiral,
it preserves energy and it gives you more distance any
more accurate with it. Same thing. So if you compare
(14:21):
a wounded duck football throw with a musket, okay, smooth bore,
and then you take a rifled weapon with a tight spiral,
that's kind of a simplistic way of looking at it.
And so we have long arms. And also following in
the category of long arms, many times there are shotguns. And
so shotguns are smooth bore, okay, but they're meant for close,
(14:47):
close engagements, but further away than say a pistol would
be usedful and they bring they put a lot of
power and a lot of energy on target. So that's
you know, you've got those two groups of long arms.
So the other group of weapons that we commonly encounter,
particularly in investigations out on the streets, are handguns, and
(15:12):
they break out in a modern sense. And again I'm
qualifying these things in the modern sense. I'm not talking
about like the weapon that President Lincoln was assassinated with,
which was a muzzle loading muzzle loading derringer that you
had to use a ramrod to press the you know,
(15:32):
to get the projectile down the barrel that had to
be primed and then it was fired. I'm talking about
now multi shot weapons that we encounter on the streets
in investigations, and with handguns, those are generally going to
fall into two categories. So you're going to have revolvers,
(15:53):
which old guys call them wheel guns as well, and
you've seen you've seen, you know, revolvers in all manner
of television shows over the years, old Westerns, you know,
even detective programs from back in as late as the eighties,
because it's what cops carried. Cops had classically, they had
(16:17):
the six inch Smith and Western thirty eight special revolver
with ann iron sight and so the cylinder that the
bullets and most of the time most revolvers hold six rounds.
Sometimes you'll find them a whole five, and you have
others that will hold more, but those are kind of outlayers.
(16:37):
The as the hammer is actuated and pulled back, you'll
see the cylinder kind of spin and it puts it
on a fresh round and you've only got six, okay,
six times to fire this thing, and then you have
to reload. It's kind of cumbersome. And that's the way,
you know, we kind of saw this change happened back
in the eighties with service weapons that police acers were carrying,
(17:01):
and they went from revolvers, which they had carried for
years and years, to semi automatic handguns. Top of the
list probably to begin with some of the ones you saw.
There were two groups that you saw being employed by
law enforcement agencies. To begin with, those were glocks, which
everybody's heard of now it's an Austrian made weapon. It's
(17:24):
got a polymer frame. And then there were Barrettas, which
is an Italian weapon. And the reason that Barretta was
very popular was because it's what our military troops carried
in all branches, because they had carried the forty five
for years and years, and forty five ACP has a
(17:47):
storied history. But again it could only hold up to
seven rounds, not sufficient to the task. Weapons now the
semi automatic weapon that police officers carry. If you're watching
these videos you know that are that are on YouTube
(18:07):
and these sorts of things, and you're watching them, uh,
these live shooting instances, you'll see the cop fire multiple
times and it seems like it's never going to end.
And that's because the magazines which hold these rounds are
you know, in the double digits, these rounds and so
and then they've got multiple magazines on their belts. So
(18:29):
when you see a cop wearing wearing their utility gear,
you'll see, you know, magazine holders and you'll see them.
And that's one of the skills you have to develop.
You have to be able to drop drop a magazine,
reload and get back into the fight. And that's one
of the things that's taught in military as well. So
we've got long arms, rifles and shotguns. Then we've got handguns,
(18:55):
which are generally gonna be revolvers. They're still revolvers that
people carry. I know people that prefer for revolvers over
semi automatics. And then you've got the semi automatics, your glocks,
Bretta sixth hour, which I think is what the military
has gone to now hk's and some of these can
(19:16):
cost into the thousands and thousands of dollars, and they
come in a variety of calibers as well. You know, Dave,
(19:38):
I've made mention of the first autopsy I ever participated in,
which was a bludgeoning death. God had been beaten to
death with a baseball bat at the hand of his
brother something.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, I'm a horrible shot, but I'm excellent with the
Louisville slugger.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
And there you go.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Tasted it all at my doors and I've all it
out the barrel and put my area. If you come
into my house, you're not You're not walking out just
you know.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
When I get to our blunt force blunt blunt force
drama lecture, I'm going to rely heavily upon you with
that because we will talk about baseball paths. Uh. The
first homicide or the first death I was ever involved
in as an autopsy technician was actually a bludgeoning. A
(20:26):
god had been beaten to death by baseball with a
baseball bat. The first scene that ever went on where
I was the primary investigator was actually a gunshot wound.
And that's you know, I know people might think, well,
that's not unusual, Morgan. Well yet it is. Because you
work for the corner. You handle all manners of death,
and generally firearms related deaths are the least of what
(20:49):
you handle. You handle the fewest of those.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
You told me that, Joe watching the news and politics, Yeah,
everybody in America had a gun loaded and cocked and
ready to take something.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
And that everybody's dying on a gun. Yeah, I know,
Well the news.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
That's what we did. We got a cup of coffee,
shot somebody.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
And yeah, most our will get you fished in by that.
The line's share of deaths that you work as an investigator,
even going out on the field. In my field, I'm
not talking about it as a homicide detective. I'm talking
as medical legal death investigator. Are going to be naturals,
but it just so happened. The first one, the first
case that ever worked by myself in the field, was
(21:29):
a gunshot wound and it was with kind of an
interesting weapon. It was a twenty two magnum revolver, which
is actually a very powerful You think of a twenty two,
which is that's an imperial measurement, and we can talk
about calibers. Twenty two is essentially zero point two inches
(21:50):
in circumference around the actual projectile, and that's where you
get that number. But that's an imperial measurement which was
given to us by the British and we adopted that.
So anytime you hear caliber, that's what we're talking about.
That's an imperial measurement. But other so called measurements for
weapons are done metric. That's why you hear and you
(22:11):
hear it in a lot of songs that are out
there that popularly talking about a nine millimeter nine millimeter glock,
you know, and so nine millimeter is probably the most
popular round, but that measurement is done in millimeters, so
and you've got ten milimeter pistols or handguns, but you know,
(22:32):
you have rifle rounds that one of the most popular
to the most popular for hunting are six millimeter and
seven millimeter. So and it's hard. There's no like, there's
no debt one match for these. When you compare the
imperial system, which is rooted in Great Britain, to the
metric system or you know, the millimeter system, if you will,
(22:55):
for measuring measuring rounds even you know, look, even in
the mill terry, you have to learn the metric measurement
for firearms. So you know, like the standard round for
years and years in the military has been a five
point five to six millimeters round. That's what goes into
the rifle. And it's roughly about the size believe it
(23:17):
or not, Dave, The diameter of the circumference of the
actual round itself is about roughly the size of a
twenty two round. It's not that big. It's just the
amount of powder or propellant that's placed into that particular round,
and then the weight of the bullet is it's larger.
The projectile is actually larger than say even a twenty
(23:39):
two long rifle, and so the amount of powder that's
put behind it, the propellant. When that round hits something,
it can rip it apart. And most of those rounds
are what are called flangible frangible fragmenting rounds, so when
they hit a target, they kind of come apart. And
so you've got these tiny, little particulate rounds that are
(24:03):
going into a body or bits of shrapnel and they're
ripping things to shreds in there as well. So there's
a huge variety and it takes it takes you a
while to get used to this environment, you know, to
try to be able to spink to lingo because it's
it's certainly a it's certainly a language all and of itself.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Okay, but when you're actually looking at a body on scene, yeah,
are you able are you able to understand what weapon
or what type of weapon was used before you get
them back? I mean, can you look at a body
and go, yeah, that's a twenty two? I mean do
you can you do that? Or do you what happens
on scene when you're dealing with somebody who is a
(24:43):
victim of a being shot.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
That's an excellent question because you you will see portrayed
in movies. And I've even been around colleagues that will
say that looks like a twenty two or that looks
like a nine, and I would I'll learned early on
in my career not to say that, because I was
proven wrong so many times once we got back to
the Morgue. And interestingly enough, Dave when I write, or
(25:09):
wrote when I was writing, and I still teach my
students this at Jack State. When you write a report, okay,
I I never say in one of my reports involving gunplay,
I never say that the subject has a gunshot wound
(25:31):
to the anterior chest, or to the posterior chest, or
to the hit. I'll say that the individual has a
circular or irregular shaped defect. Because if I call that,
if I call that defect or that hole in the
body a gunshot wound in the field, and then that
body has to make it back to the morgue. Well,
(25:54):
when the forends of pathologist gets that the body in
a in perfect conditions for examination with the surgical lights
and everything, first off, they might look at that and say, yeah,
that's that's not a gunshot wound. That person was pierced
by something here that might resemble a gunshot wound, or
(26:16):
this is the tail end of a laceration. It's not
a gunshot wound. But yet I've gone ahead and put
it in an official report. And then if the pathologist
report comes out, those two things are conflicting. When they're subpoena,
you know, and they can put you on the stand
and say, well, look, you know, you're a pathologist here,
(26:36):
made a statement that this is a gunshot wound. But
yet you're saying or that you said that it's a
gunshot wound, but they're saying that it's something other than that.
Who should we believe? And again, that's that kernel, that
seed that's planted for reasonable doubts. So you have to
be real careful with your.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Verbiage, evening your thinking about if this goes to trial,
if I'm called. That's in the back of your head
every step of the way.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, it is. And that's why it's so important that
you remain very, very clinical. You know, when you're at
a scene. First off, you're you're at a great disadvantage
day in the field. And I've mentioned this before. I'm
not whining about it. I'm just saying you don't have
like the same advantages you do, and the more to
examine a body because the lighting is insufficient. You know,
you try to go out in the middle of the woods,
(27:23):
in the middle of the night, on a moonless night,
overcast night. You can't see your hand in front of
your face, but yet you're you are going to attempt
to give a detailed description of something that has got
little tears in it that measure maybe one centimeter. Because
(27:43):
of the orientation of the around when it goes through
the body, You're incapable of doing that in that environment.
So that's why I spoke very broadly, you know, when
I would write, and I would recommend to anybody that's
going into forensics that you speak very broadly about field
with feeling reports, particularly when it comes to injuries, because
you don't know. One of the most embarrassing things that
(28:05):
can happen is to have some lawyer get you hip
on stand and the first you know, they'll talk to
you in general terms, what your background and what's your
experience and all this, and they might say, hey, look,
I was looking here at your CV you know, your resume,
and I see that you graduated with your master's degree
in forensic science. But where'd you go to medical school.
(28:29):
I didn't go to medical school. But yet you've made
an assessment at the scene that this is a gunshot Once.
Certainly you have to have medical training in order to
be that. Are you a board certified forensic pathologist? No, sir,
I'm not so, even though I might be the best
investigator in the world. All the while he's asking me
(28:49):
these questions that I have to respond negatively to. Who's listening, Well,
the jury's listening. So that's why with gunshot wounds in particular,
I'm a bit cagy about it because I've gotten burned.
I've had friends that have really gotten burned, and I
learned from forensic pathologists, you know they I had one
old friends of pathologist that told me, let me bear
(29:10):
the burden of that. You just indicate to me where
you see defects in the body. It's like people will
I'm amazed at when I go out on scenes, I'll
have people will say, well, this is an entrance and
this is an exit wound. Well, how do you know that?
How do you know that that's an entrance? Oh, because
entrance is always smaller than the exit. Prove it Joe. Well,
(29:32):
i've seen cases before. Well, I've seen a lot of
cases too, and I've seen cases particularly like individuals that
are struck from behind in the shoulder blade, that flat bone,
and it's a very nasty injury, and it might give
you the appearance that it's an exit, where it's actually
an entrance. People shot in the spiny process in their
next many times that kind of blows out and it
(29:55):
gives the impression of an exit very well might be
an entrance. And so you can't make that determination in
the field.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
You're right back, right back the middle of JFK. Now,
because in the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, there was
always a battle over the neck wound, yes, you know,
and they ended up using the neck wound to actually
put a track.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Started an airway. Yeah, and that's hey, look, that's commonly done, right.
It's it's not like that's abnormal.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Right, not like they messed it up or anything.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
No, no, no, no no. And you would still see
some evidence, like, for instance, when the president was shot,
and this goes into an assessment of range of fire,
which is very important in what we do. When the
president was shot, regardless of who fired the weapon and
from where it was coming from when you examined his body,
(30:53):
and if it had actually been examined by Earl Rose
instead of those buffoons on the East coast.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
That went and creating to go back and listen to
our body back the assassination of JFK.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Please do it was the biggest clown show and face
the planet. And you know, Earl Rose almost went to
jail over that because he Doctor Rose was in the
in the hallway at Parkland and he was fighting or
he was protesting to Secret Service and he, according to him,
one of the agents actually put their hand on their
weapon and saying said, the presence body is leaving here.
(31:26):
And he was like, I'm I'm the legal authority here.
You know this is this is a homicide in Dallas County.
And we talked about that extensively. But you know, doctor
Rose was actually involved in the autopsies of Tippett who
was allegedly shutting by Oswald, and he did Oswald's autopsy
as well. Interestingly enough, I believe if I'm not mistaken,
(31:50):
you know, Dave, I think he actually did Jack Ruby's autopsy.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
What the same guy.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, he died, He died in the City Jail of
cancer and I think he actually did that autopsy as well,
and that several years later. But you know, you think
about the intersection. If only if only doctor Rose had
been had been allowed to assess President's injuries, you know,
because he would have probably, first off, he would have
(32:17):
arrived at a different conclusion because that body would have
been secured in his morgue and not be flown a
thousand miles or highever the how far it is to Bethesda,
you know, from from love Field, and he could have
done that assessment appropriately incorrectly. But you know, with President
Kennedy shooting, that's what we would refer to as around
(32:42):
fired from a distance, and when you're trying to assess
the range of fire, you're in to another complete level
as far as forensic examinations go. Dave, I tell you
(33:08):
JFK has always been a head scratcher. It from what
I can tell at this point, it will always be
a head scratcher. But you know what, we we had
the advantage of always reflecting back to science, and that's
what keeps us grounded.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
When you did the show, and I was so thankful
you did it because there are so many things that
the average shoe doesn't know. All we hear are the theories.
Ohen you get down of the forensics of what actually happened,
and you're saying, here's all the things they did to
make sure we would never know the truth. That's a
real problem. But you were just talking about range of fire,
(33:43):
and I'm concerned and curious about how how can you
determine I mean, you've got a bullet being fired from
a weapon. Yeah, how can you determine range of fire?
I mean, I guess I understand stiffling, so I could
understand a contact wound if you're you know, touching my again,
I'm going to get But beyond that, how can you
really tell how far it was?
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Well, with the president, some people will use the term
long range shot, and yeah, it is a long range shot,
but scientifically that means nothing. So what does that mean? Well,
it's actually an indeterminate range if you want to look
at it from a purely clinical sense, because there's no
(34:26):
way like once you get out beyond Some people will
debate you about this. Some people say it's eighteen inches.
I hear people say all the way after thirty six inches.
Once you get beyond that our marker right there, there's
no President Kennedy could have been shot from thirty Let's
just say we'll be generous from thirty six inches out
to infinity and there wouldn't be any evidence on the body. Okay,
(34:51):
all you're going to have is a defect. Now, the
one thing that you see with indeterminate range, if you're
talking about a rifled round that's passing. I encourage anybody
that hasn't seen the quote unquote magic bullet. That bullet
has been fired. It's got rifling on it, and you
(35:12):
can actually see it running down the long axis. It's
just that it's so intact, you know. But that's a story.
That's a story I've already told. Actually, But when you
see the wound that is generated traditionally, because you know,
President Kennedy's body got so kind of boogered up and
(35:32):
orientation was all off and everything else. But if you
look at an indetermined range projectile or projectile that has
been fired from an indeterminate range, the only thing you're
going to see is what's referred to as a friction ring.
And what that means is going back to my example
(35:52):
of tight spiral on a football. It's spinning. Okay, well,
think about a spinning This is painful to think about,
all right, just this in and of itself, and you
wouldn't notice it when you're being shot. But as that
bullet is spinning, and it is spinning like nobody's business,
all right, when it strikes. When it strikes the skin,
(36:14):
it actually Dave twists the skin like this. Okay, So
you get this abrasion ring around a circular defect, and
you'll see the little abraided area where it kind of twist.
I've actually, I could have sworn before I've actually seen
on the hour marker the outer margins of one of
these things, little kind of hash marks that look like
(36:40):
indication of rifling, you know, and they're kind of at
a they're kind of fan shaped. Doctor told me, I
was out of my mind. I wasn't really seeing that,
so I was like, oh, okay, well whatever. But anyway,
it twists, It twists the skin, and that friction that's
created on the skin just for that moment, you know,
it it upbraids that area, it tears the skin, It
(37:01):
in salts the skin. But beyond that, you're not going
to have any powder deposition there's not going to be
any debris blown out of the barrel because none of
that crap is aerodynamics. So let's just say you're in
that multi storied structure of the Texas school Book Suppository
Depository that you're standing. You're up there, and you're in
(37:25):
a sniper's nest, and you're firing this round. Well, by
the time that round reaches the end of the muzzle, okay,
which is in a twinkling of an eye, that round
is going down range and it's leaving a cloud behind it.
And you can see this in high speed camera slow
motion on weapons. I encourage everybody to go look these
(37:47):
up on the inner zones out there. You see this
kind of cloud that rises up out of the barrel,
and the projectile actually emerges from that. Well, just take
a look in that slow and they're everywhere. When you
see them, that slow motion cloud that's coming out doesn't
(38:07):
go very far. As a matter of fact, really quickly
you can see it begin to descend to the Earth.
None of that stuff is has the aerodynamic qualities that
a spinning lead core projectile has as it's going down
range and it can stay on target for a protracted time.
So it's not carrying any of that debris with it.
(38:28):
So when you have an indetermined range, you know that
if you're in court, you know, the attorney might say, well, gee, whiz,
how far away was this round or was the shooter?
You know, when I don't know, I have no idea.
So you're telling me with all your knowledge. Yeah, I'm
telling you, based upon a lot of scientific study over
(38:48):
the years, that it's impossible to tell because there's there's
no deposition. Now when you get into what we would
refer to as we'll kind of do these backwards, it's
when you're the next tier to this is going to
be like an intermediate range. You look at a case
of well, if you just look at, for instance, Oswald,
(39:12):
when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby in the garage,
you can see him, I mean, and there's that classic
freeze frame where he's kind of hunched over and he's
got this pained look on his face and Ruby is
extending that snubnose thirty eight caliber revolver. He's holding a
revolver here and he fires it at Ruby. Well, Ruby
(39:35):
is in kind of a and this goes to what
we're trying to figure out. Also with trajectory. Ruby is
kind of tilted down like this when he shot, he
kind of hunches like this. You know that round actually
traveled downward in his body. I mean it passed through
several several organ systems. He didn't have a he didn't
(39:55):
have a shot, no pun intended of surviving. But that's
an inner immediate round with him intermediate range, So you know,
it's hard to determine from because you're seeing it. It's
kind of kind of like, uh, it's kind of like
Ruby's POV, but you're behind Ruby, and it's hard to
(40:18):
gauge distance in depth from that range. But I would
say that based upon the muzzle position relative to Ruby,
I mean relative to Oswald when that weapon was fired,
you might see some deposition. Now, do you remember, Dave,
what color sweater Ruby was wearing when he was shot?
Speaker 2 (40:39):
No, well, when Ruby was shot, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
I'm sorry, when Oswald was shot, I keep now.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
I just I can remember as the picture that was
in the newspaper that you know, basically shows him like
you were, just you know, bent over and the pained
look on his face.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
I don't remember much else he's wearing. He's wearing a
black sweater and a white shirt. The collar is kind
of popping up out of it, and you know, if
we were to look at his body, you know he
was actually taken to Parkland. He died in the same
area that the President died in. No, he did, he did.
I think it tipp It was taken to Parkland too,
Uh but yeah, so yeah, I mean they were if
(41:16):
I remember this, some of this might be Lord, that's
coming back up in my mind. I think they were
in adjacent trauma rooms. He was adjacent to the room
that the president had been brought into when they started
running the code on it.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Well, I mean it makes sense that. I mean, you've
got it spell and you bring certain victims into certain rooms.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, it's a level of whatever it's called, level one
trauma center.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
I think I would imagine that that that actually, as
weird as it is, makes perfectly good sense.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah. Can you imagine being a nurse on duty that
day and you had handled the president and now you
got the guy who's been on the news. But anyway,
he's wearing a black sweater. So I got to tell you, Dave,
this is where our testing comes in, because if you
just try to eyeball that sweater to get an idea
of any kind of debris that's on that sweater. You're
(42:02):
not going to see it with the unaided eye. That sweater.
Hopefully they saved it. You know, hospital emergency rooms have
a bad habit of cutting things off. You know, you
see that portrayed many times, and it's a real thing.
If they preserve that sweater, and the sweater would be
taken to the crime lab and they could analyze it,
and they could actually use alternative lighting and chemical testing
(42:26):
to give you the deposition of the gunshot residue that's
on the outside of that sweater, and it'll give you
a range fire. So just imagine this. You're if you're
firing an intermediate range, the deposition of the powder that
is embedded either on an article of clothing or on skin,
(42:51):
is going to be greatly spread out. It's kind of
like a water hose, you know, when you put it
on spray mode, and it kind of looks like a
fountain coming out out of its spreading. For the closer
you get to the nozzle, the tighter it gets. So
with that, if he's within let's just say it's eighteen inches,
it might be I don't know, the deposition could be
(43:12):
I'm just spitballing here, maybe twelve inches by twelve inches.
That's the deposition that you're talking about high and low
or high and wide, and that deposition is going to dictate. Now,
what they would have done is they will take that
same pistol that Ruby used and go to the state
crime Lab and they will fire. And this is something
(43:32):
we have to have done by the crime lab. You
turn that over to the Ballistic Section firearms examination, and
they have an indoor range where they'll go and they'll
take a white T shirt and it's really impressive if
you've never seen this done. White T shirt, hang it
up and they will fire at various ranges into fresh
white T shirts. And as they get closer and closer,
(43:53):
that deposition tightens up and tightens up. And there's always
that the defect in the sweater. This always constant. You know,
it's right there, but as you're getting closer and closer,
it's tightening down.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Do they have to put the shirt on something else
that actually can simulate.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
The No, No, no, they'll they'll hang it. They generally
hang it and do it. Now, that's different types of
testing than say in a ballistic slab where they go
and they fire into a tank filled with cotton strips
of cotton, or they fire into a water tank that's
got a catch basin in the bottom, and that way
(44:31):
they can Let's say we take a projectile out at autopsy.
All right, let's say they'll removed the projectile out of
out of Oswle's body, fired from Ruby's gun. Well, that
that projectile more than likely that thirty eight special round
is going to be deformed in some way. It's not
going to be pristine. Oh exactly.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Last it goes to the President of the United States
and ends up on the and.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Makes a left hand turn it. Yeah, it goes through
the other guy's wrist, and yeah, where you go to do.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Break seven bones and stelling it Christine, you know what
that was the That's the metal that was used in
Iron Man. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, no kidding. And one of the things, you know,
one of the things you're looking for is to try
to compare the question weapon, which would be the projectile
or the question projectile that you recover from the body
with the round that's fired out of Ruby's gun. And
you compare the two and people will say, well, you
(45:30):
know what it was on TV. It's his weapon that
doesn't stand TV, doesn't stand up in sorry to I'm
sorry to burst your bubble. That has to be tested
and scientifically, they have to do a comparison if thing
were to go to trial. Of course, Uh, you know
it is what it is. Uh, and you try to
compare it. Now, the closer you get to where you're
(45:53):
in a circumstance where you've got a a round that's fired,
let's say, how can I say it. You've got a
round that is fired at an individual, say it what
would be called close range. Close range. You're going to
be within a couple of inches of the target. And buddy,
(46:13):
when you see, when you see the damage that's done,
that powder, the unburned powder in particular, rages out of
that weapon, and say, if it strikes skin, you're going
to have it's going to look like this is kind
of disgusting. It's going to look like a huge collection
of blackheads to most people the first time they see it,
(46:35):
like a huge concentrate you're looking at you're thinking, this
is really bizarre. But of course you've got a defect
right in a hole, right in the center of it,
but it's surrounded by all this kind of unburned powder,
and that unburned powder actually gets beneath the skin. It's there.
So if you took a section of that skin and
you cut it and you put it on microscopic slide,
(46:57):
guess what When you look at that section microscopically, you
can actually see the powder. And what I mean by
that the unburned powder. Powder comes in different shapes depended
upon the actual granules of powder. You can have disc shape,
cylindrical shape, you can have pyramidial shaped powder. And I'm
(47:22):
talking about the individual grains of powder that come from
a particular company. So that's kind of an identifier that
can be used by ballistics.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Experts that come from a specific company.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Yeah, yeah, because each manufacturer might make a powder where
the individual grains of powder are in a particular shape
and that shape is unique to them. So, you know,
we try to find all of these components that we
can in addition to doing regular gunshot residue testing where
we're looking for chemical chemical evidence, you know, where we're
(47:58):
looking for barium, antimony, and lead, which are components of
of actual gunpowder or propelling I prefer to use the
term propell and as opposed to gunpowder.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
When they do the test to see if I fired
a gun. Yeah, if I have fired a weapon, is
that that was it?
Speaker 1 (48:17):
The GSR Yeah, GSR gunshot rose do testing, okay.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
And that's where you're going to be able to tell
if I wash my hands, I shoot a weapon, wash
my hands, scrub them down her Are you still going
to build test me?
Speaker 1 (48:28):
No? Probably not that quick you can me gone. Yeah.
As a matter of fact, there's even evidence that people
put that put their hands in their pockets after firing
a weapon. Uh, you know, compromise the concentration of it,
right and listen, just because you have it on your
hands doesn't mean you fire a weapon, right, and you
may have held a weapon, it means that you were
in proximity to a weapon. They did one study Dave
(48:50):
years ago, uh, testing people that worked in an ammunition factory,
and they were testing them every day as they were
leaving and they're actually putting together components of large, large projectiles,
and they were getting they were getting like forty five
(49:10):
percent negatives on these individuals and even worse than even
worse than that is back and this existed before I
came into the field, they used to paraffine tests, which
were where you would have a suspect place their hand
into warm wax and they would peel the wax off
of the hands and whatever it captured. It's the same
(49:31):
thing as doing a tape lift. So you're looking for
that residue that's contained within you know this. I don't
know if you want to call it a medium or resin,
whatever it is, but it's called a paraffine test. So
after you get past close range, then you have what's
referred to as press contact or hard contact. Dependent upon
(49:52):
where you are and where you studied, you'll and what
pathologists you've worked around. In my field, they'll call it
different things. I've heard hard contact, press contact, and most
of the time you see press and hard contact wounds
with self inflicted wounds. And it's most of the time
I've always felt it's because the individual is purposed. They
(50:13):
want to assure or insure rather that they are going
to get the job done. Now, when you have this occur,
that round that is being initiated, when it travels out
of the musle, that weapon, it's creating a cavity in
the head. Okay, let's just say it's a self inflicted
(50:34):
to the head, or you could use a sterm as well,
because that happens too, and it's pressed and it's like
pressed hard against the skin and it creates a seal.
You know, when that weapon is discharged, it's not just
the projectile coming out. We've already talked about unburned powder.
You've got smoke that's coming out. But the other thing
(50:55):
you've got that's coming out, and the reason press gun
top press contact gunshot ones are so destructive is that
you've got heated gas coming out. And we all know
from eighth grade physical science class that heated gas expands,
and it expands at a rapid rate, so you'll get
(51:15):
these grotesque injuries to the head. And it's not just
the projectile doing it. It's also that gas expanding inside
the cranial vault and you'll see fractures that run along
the suture lines. If you know what a suture line is,
it's when you look at a human skull. You've got
these wavy lines. We've talked about this before where the
skull kind of interlocks with one another and you'll many
(51:39):
times you'll see it literally fracture along the suture lines,
both posteriorly anteriorly laterally, and it's devastating. And then the
bone after it passes through bone, those bits of bone
become trapnel.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
There's that guy in Philadelphia that did the shot himself
during the city council meeting. Remember that was on tea.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Yea, yeah it was. It was actually Bud Dwire it
was he was actually he was the former treasurer of
the State of Pennsylvania. I actually got to see that
raw footage. You could see his head expand well, yeah,
and you can you can see if you look very carefully,
he uses I think that's a cult python. I think
(52:22):
it's a three point fifty seven that he's using, and
it's an inter oral gunshot one. So it's a great
example of the expansion of gas because when he fires.
Back in the day, when we got that tape, we
put it on uh and we got it at the
coroner's office. We had that tape on like the most
(52:42):
high end VCR that there was at the time. It
had and I don't understand about the technology. I think
multiple heads in it and so it could slow things down. Yeah,
and you could see a flash inside of his mouth
and I've seen these. I've had cases where people videotape
themselves and you see the cheeks expand like a chipmunk,
(53:04):
and you'll get what a refer to as striya, which
are the same as stretch marks. You'll get striya on
the cheeks because it expands so fast, because the rapid
expansion of the gas that it creates these these curvelinear
lines that are called striya and their stretch marks essentially.
(53:25):
But it's an acute stretch mark. It's not like somebody's
getting heavier or whatever in life and you know their
limbs are beginning or the diameter of their legs are
beginning to expand, or they're tummy or whatever. It's different
than that. It's a real unique feature that you see.
And then not to mention the damage that the round
is creating as it's traveling through the body.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
That's just amazing. I remember that video of his head
that the one thing I remember is that it stretched.
It was almost cartoonish. Yeah, very quick, but it was
so shocking that I've only seen it once or twice
and I remember it and it was many years ago
in a newsroom when I saw and I just this
is when you were explaining that, I was wondering.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
No, I actually I'm glad you brought that up. I
actually showed that video in every year when I do
my lecture of medical legal death Investigation on firearms related
death because and it's a great example of the camera
never blinks. I don't know who the camera operator was,
but they stayed on him as he kind of slides
down the wall, and you can appreciate the volume of
blood that issues forth from the nose in the mouth,
(54:25):
and a lot of that has to do with how
thin the floor is of the hard palette is, you know,
leading up into the skull. It's almost eggshell like in
thickness or thinness, I guess, and so it kind of
it shatters like that, and the brain is so vascular,
you know, you have this copious amount of blood that's
coming out, and you if you listen very carefully on
(54:48):
that tape, Dave, you can actually hear the blood flowing,
which is something I've never encountered before, you know, and
I was, you know, from a practitioner standpoint, I was
fascinated by that. But it's a great teaching tool because
you really begin to kind of understand the power and
(55:08):
the destructive nature of firearms. And for those of us
that work in forensics, that teach forensics, or that formerly
worked in our field, an understanding of firearms and their
function their purpose is essential to being a successful investigator.
To understand the science and the mechanism of modern firearms,
(55:34):
because if you don't understand these things that you're encountering
out on the street, there's no telling what kind of
interpretation you'll wind up making. So it's important that we
always say that we're studied up. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan,
and this is Bodybacks
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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